ABSTRACT
One of the standard comparisons for the events of 11 September 2001 was the London Blitz. The New York Times ran quotations from various accounts, particularly from The Blitz by Constantine FitzGibbon, first published in 1957, that included as its illustrations the shelter drawings by Henry Moore.1 The New York Times also ran the famous photograph of St Paul’s surviving amidst flames, a picture taken on the worst day of the London Blitz, 29 December 1940, calling it the Ground Zero of the time. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani frequently made comparisons between the events of 9/11 and the Blitz.2 Obviously there were great differences; there was no official war, and one was a discreet event rather than part of a continuum. But it did have the powerful similarity of a considerable number of deaths of those who had not chosen to put themselves at risk, what one might call ‘ordinary victims’ and also, as in the Blitz, heroes who duties became much more dramatic than anticipated. In the Blitz there were the air raid wardens and the fire-fighting force; in 9/11 there were the fire-fighters and the police.
